


Devil Deals the Cards

by walkingivy



Series: In Good Company [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Rick Grimes, Canon-Typical Violence, Demisexual Daryl Dixon, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Nightmares, POV Alternating, Past Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Reunions, codependent relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:08:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingivy/pseuds/walkingivy
Summary: Daryl is bit, and while he doesn’t turn, it’s not without consequences. The group is slowly reuniting, but they will have to come to grips with the changes within themselves and each other during their long separation.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes, Maggie Greene/Glenn Rhee
Series: In Good Company [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807570
Comments: 61
Kudos: 124





	1. Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is part two in a series and probably won't make much sense without reading part one, but I'm not the boss of you. You do what you want.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Highlights from All That’s Left is You:
> 
> Rick and Daryl get separated from the group when the farm falls and spend the winter searching for the rest of their people while developing a relationship and rearing an orphaned baby they name Judith. Along the way, they meet the dredges of society in Joe and The Living, as well as kind survivors in Tara’s family and Pete Dolgen but ultimately get separated from all of them as well. In the end, Daryl is bitten by walkers, but the fallout isn’t what they expected.
> 
> Glenn leads the rest of the crew, eventually reuniting with Andrea and Michonne, but losing T-Dog. They are taken in by Woodbury where Lori finally receives the medical care she needs, but it’s too late to save her baby. Merle is manipulated into killing the Governor and flees, whereupon they create a governing council including Andrea, Maggie, Milton, Martinez and Dr. Stevens. Carol leaves with Tyler, a young survivor from The Living, and Lizzie after the girl murders her family.

The bolt sliced through the air, knocking a few leaves from a tree and lodging itself in the dirt several yards from its target. The rabbit jerked up and darted away. Rick sighed, walked over to the stray bolt and pried it from the ground. Rabbit wasn’t on the menu unless he wanted to risk firing his gun and drawing in more walkers. The woods were still crawling with them. 

It had taken him three days to retrieve Daryl’s crossbow from the pond. At first, he’d just fished around for it, but the walkers were unperturbed by the chill of the water and the lack of oxygen, still waiting eagerly when he returned to the body of water. Eventually, he found a tapered incline for them to walk along the bottom and back out of the water. One by one, he put them down and then safely collected the crossbow.

It wasn’t doing him a lot of good. He spent most of his time tracking down the bolts and rarely hit anything that wasn’t dirt. 

He sighed again, looking back towards the cabin and then down to his rumbling stomach. If he wanted to eat today, hunting was not his best bet. Instead he turned back in the direction of the bridge. He’d been there a few times to collect more supplies, and while it wasn’t the whole night trek it’d been that first night, it would take him a couple hours there and back. If he was quick, he could be back before dusk. 

He crossed paths with three walkers on his way there and put each one down with his knife. One of them was still wearing a pair of glasses on its face, and Rick pocketed them before moving on. 

The herd was still there, most of them stuck in the ravine with the tank and the truck, but a fair number wandering about the road, drawn to the sounds of the herd but unable to fit into the overfilled depression. The first time he’d come back was for water, before it had rained to fill the rain buckets and give a better source than the contaminated pond. He came in with a plan, covering himself with walker guts like he’d done the day he met Glenn, and spent hours unloading their truck and dragging the supplies off into the woods. He piled them under some tarps and leaves a fair distance away so he wouldn’t have to keep walking into a herd to get more. 

From then on, he spent some time hunting every day, and rarely catching anything. He’d make the trip back to the stashed supplies on the days when the food ran out. Rick filled his backpack and then loaded a duffel bag. They wouldn’t last forever, especially since half the supplies on the trucks had been military gear and not edibles, but it would buy time. Before he left, he snatched the binoculars dangling from a nearby tree and ran them over the scene at the road. It wasn’t the best visibility, but he hoped he’d see some sign of his friends, maybe confirmation of their fate. It hurt to look, but he couldn’t help himself. After several minutes scanning the decaying faces, Rick put the binoculars back, picked up his bags and left.

The walk back was miserably long, and Rick wished he had a rolling cart to move his haul, but it would probably get stuck in the mud too often to be useful. He was thankful that at least the snow and cold were well and truly gone, and the weather hadn’t shifted over to the blistering heat of Georgia summers yet. 

When he reached the cabin and opened the door, he was met with a gun pointed at his face. “It’s me,” Rick said, dropping the duffel and raising his hands until Daryl lowered the gun and tucked it away.

“Gone a long time,” Daryl complained. 

“It was a long walk.”

Daryl squinted at the doorway, stepping closer to see what Rick was carrying and tutting when he recognized the military bags. “Shouldn’t go there by yourself.” 

They both knew Daryl would be shit backup now that his vision was only clear for two feet in front of him. He’d be just as likely to hit Rick as a walker, and unlikely to hit either. But Rick didn’t rub salt in the wound. “Someone’s got to watch Judith. It’s too dangerous to bring her.” 

Daryl snorted and used Judith’s tiny hand to give him the bird. 

“Shouldn’t do that.” Rick commented as he dragged in the bags and started unloading them onto the table. He read the labels and tried to decide which one he wanted to eat tonight as a reward for his hard labor. 

Daryl shrugged. “She’s too young to remember.”

“It’ll build muscle memory,” Rick argued, taking Judith and giving her a little squeeze before handing off the glasses to Daryl.

Daryl took them with a frown but tried them on, looking around the room before tossing them back on the table with a shake of his head. “If she’s old enough to build muscle memory, then we can start building her muscle memory for a crossbow. One of you should know how to hunt.”

Rick ignored the attack on his skills. He had more respect for Daryl’s ability with the crossbow now that he’d been forced to adopt it. He’d assumed it didn’t take all that much talent to aim and pull the trigger, and certainly no more difficult to excel at than a pistol. He was fully prepared to amend that assumption now. Daryl either had a gift or had trained for years to master his weapon of choice, most likely both. 

And he’d probably never use it again. 

Rick pushed the thought from his mind. It wasn’t a good idea to dwell these days when depression was just a stone’s throw away, waiting to swallow them both. “What are you going to do? Make a baby-sized crossbow?” Daryl in particular was floundering after losing so much of himself overnight. He was no longer a provider or a protector, he was someone who had to be provided for and protected. Rick was loathe to admit how much he was struggling to pick up the slack, and they both hated it.

“Ya think I can’t?”

“Our baby does not need a crossbow. She’s five months old,” Rick stated, just in case. “Have you considered reading a book to ease your boredom?”

“Ain’t bored,” Daryl replied petulantly, even though they both knew he was chomping at the bit to do something more proactive than feeding Judith. It was undermined further by the way his jaw stretched open in a yawn. “Jus’ tired.”

Rick refrained from commenting that Daryl hadn’t been on a 5 hour hike, so he had no reason to be tired. It wasn’t about some soreness in his legs, or staying up too late. It was about the nightmares that seemed to come whenever he fell asleep. Rick had them too, revisiting all the faces of those lost and dead to them, usually shifted and distorted to resemble walkers. He was pretty sure that Daryl’s dreams were worse by the way he whimpered and thrashed most nights, haunted by unspoken terrors.

Rick smiled tightly. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when dinner is ready.”

“Tie me up?” It was asked like a child might ask to be tucked in and read a bedtime story.

“It’s been two weeks. If you were gonna turn, you’d have turned by now.”

“We don’ know that. Not for sure.”

Rick caved, like he always did, because Daryl wouldn’t sleep if his subconscious was telling him it wasn’t safe. Setting Judith down in her box, he followed Daryl over to the bed to secure his wrists to the headboard. He planted a kiss on his forehead when he was done since Daryl was acting like a child, and then followed it up with a kiss on his lips which wasn’t remotely paternal. 

When he pulled back, Daryl’s cheeks were rosy, and he was briefly tempted to take advantage of the situation before he remembered why Daryl needed to rest and why he refused to do so without being tied. He smiled instead, wondering if Daryl could even see it from the relatively short distance between them, and stood to return to his duties. 


	2. Back on Track

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning! See end notes for trigger warning (contains spoilers for this chapter).

It was easy for Daryl to recognize the warmth of Rick’s hands running up his legs, even if the figure hovering around his waist was too blurry to identify. His whole body relaxed in Rick’s presence, no one else could put their hands on him without setting off his guard. The hands made a beeline for his button, working it loose and prying down his pants and boxers in one go. 

“Rick,” Daryl meant it as a protest, but it came out as a moan. That was all the permission Rick needed to swallow him down. Daryl leaned back, thumping his head against the wall behind him, grateful that at least there was a wall and they hadn’t gone tumbling to the ground from his sudden lack of awareness. 

Rick was leading the way, as he always seemed to, gripping tightly at his hips and sucking him down before Daryl even realized he wanted it. He couldn’t remember why he’d been so insistent on keeping his distance, why they hadn’t been able to share this for weeks now, why he’d denied himself this pleasure in such a miserable world. It was just like how he’d kept Rick at bay rather than admit he enjoyed what they did together even when there was no one left to hear his confessions.

Even though he’d started on edge, Rick still managed to pull off long before he was finished, and Daryl didn’t hesitate to make his disappointment known. “Tell me ya ain’t gonna stop there.”

Chuckling, Rick came to his feet. His face inched close enough to see clearly, and Daryl drank in the sight, etching the image into his mind’s eye so he could redraw it over the blurry lump he normally saw these days. They kissed, Rick slipping his tongue into his mouth and doing devilish things. 

“You need to eat,” Rick said as he pulled back, lips quirking into a smile that was both charming and unsettling. 

Daryl nodded blindly. His stomach hurt from how empty it was, his mouth watered at the thought of getting something to fill it. And when Rick raised his arm between them, Daryl didn’t hesitate to lean in and bite down on the exposed flesh, tearing through skin and into muscle, blood rushing through his ears and splattering his cheeks. He savored the taste as he chewed, revelling in the pleasure coursing through him, not unlike the blowjob, and swallowed down the flesh. It felt solid in his stomach, like he’d eaten something satisfying after fasting for days on end. 

It was at that moment Daryl realized what he’d done. His eyes searched out Rick’s, wide in betrayal and shock. He felt like he was a glass that had shattered from one thoughtless, clumsy action. Rick’s arm was a bloody mess, and Daryl could still taste it, worse, he wanted more.

And then he woke up.

He tried to jerk up, but his arms were both tied to the headboard. He struggled blindly against the bonds, grunting in frustration. Suddenly, one hand was loose and he twisted around to dry heave over the side of the bed. He needed to get it out, needed to throw up the bite of flesh he’d taken from Rick. 

It took several minutes before he processed that Rick was sitting on the edge of the bed with him, rubbing his back like he was a child and murmuring the same words over and over. “I’m okay, Judith’s okay, we’re all okay.” He always seemed to know without asking exactly what Daryl needed to hear. “We’re not bit,” he tacked on, like he could read Daryl’s mind. It had to be good enough because Daryl wasn’t bringing Rick’s arm anywhere near his face to check for himself. 

Finally, his stomach somewhat settled, he rolled onto his back. Rick brought a cloth up to his face to wipe it clean, and Daryl pushed it away. When Rick wouldn’t give up, he snagged the cloth, wiped his own face and threw it onto the floor before rolling away from his companion. 

“You need to eat.”

Shuddering, Daryl wrapped his arms around his stomach and curled in on himself. “Ain’t hungry.” Eating was the last thing he wanted to do. He couldn’t decide what was more disturbing, the idea of Rick being bitten and turning, or that he’d be the one to do it. Maybe it was simply how much he’d enjoyed sinking his teeth into human flesh in the dream. He thought he might be sick again and leaned his forehead against the cool wall. 

He’d give himself ten minutes and then get up. Millions of people were dead and he was fortunate enough to be immune, he didn’t have any right to complain, even if the night terrors were draining and his vision loss made him virtually useless. He wasn’t going to let Rick get worried over him for no reason. So, he’d take ten minutes to pull himself together and go back to pretending everything was fine. He didn’t need to worry about falling asleep with the remnants of the nightmare lingering on his consciousness.

It was probably closer to fifteen minutes when he rolled over and sat up, but it wasn’t like he had a watch. Rick was at his side with a warm bowl, which he set carefully on his lap while pressing a kiss to the side of his head before Daryl could protest. He didn’t want the food, didn’t want to have to bring it up to his nose before recognizing it, didn’t want Rick close enough to hurt. 

“Ya don’t gotta…” Daryl waved his hand around where Rick had kissed him before forcing himself to take a bite. “Ain’t a kid.”

The food was bland and tasteless in his mouth, but he was used to that by now. It wasn’t something that was even worth bringing up. He was alive, and there was nothing to be gained from complaining over such a trivial side-effect of being bitten. Eating had always been an exercise in survival for him, anyway. It was something he did to get energy and keep his body functioning. It was just a little harder to keep down these days.

“Oh, trust me. That is not the kind of love I had in mind.”

Daryl nearly choked over the word, though the food was nothing more than a mushy soup. There was that word again. He wished Rick would stop saying it. It made him feel hot and uncomfortable in ways he couldn’t identify. “You,” he cleared his throat, “you don’t gotta keep on with it. Ain’t gonna hold ya to what ya said when ya thought I was dyin’.”

“Didn’t say it because I thought you were dying,” Rick shot back. “I said it because it’s true. And I’ve got nothing to lose saying it again when I’ve already admitted it.” 

Daryl didn’t respond, focusing instead on his soup and trying to empty his bowl without his stomach revolting. He wasn’t so far out of the loop that he couldn’t tell that this was his cue to reciprocate. It shouldn’t be that hard after all they’d been through to pluck up the courage and confess his emotions, but Daryl could only see chaos when he looked inside himself. He couldn’t name them if he wanted to.

“It’s alright,” Rick comforted, resting a hand on his thigh like it was the most natural thing in the world, “You don’t need to say it. I already know you love me.” Daryl had no idea how Rick could say that with such confidence when he didn’t know what he was feeling himself. Collecting the empty bowl, Rick headed for the small kitchen area. He paused halfway and turned around. “Well, unless I’m dying, then you’re obliged to give me that,” Rick amended. 

Daryl didn’t agree to anything, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. He couldn’t see Rick’s expression, but he imagined from his tone that it was cheeky. Rick was probably trying to lighten the mood more than anything else, and Daryl forced away the despair clawing at his insides. 

He took a deep breath, and then another. It wasn’t all bad. He was alive. He’d gotten over the worst of his flu-like symptoms that first week. He didn’t want to eat Rick when he was awake, in fact, flashes of the dream were still making him queasy. And his vision wasn’t completely gone. He could read things if he pressed them right up to his nose, could tell the time of day by the general lighting, and his eyes were quick to hone in on movement. That was something. It would be enough to evade walkers if he was careful and a little lucky.

And Rick was right. Someone did need to look after Judy, he just hadn’t imagined it’d be him. He looked around the room on instinct, wanting to lay eyes on the baby and frustrated when he couldn’t. 

“She’s by the fire,” Rick informed him without being asked, “in her box.”

Daryl made his way over, careful not to bump the box and squatted beside it. Surprisingly, Judith was awake, eyes wide and bright as she looked up at him, foot firmly lodged in her mouth and drool coating her shirt. Daryl sat down and tickled along the bottom of her wet foot. “Thought she was asleep with how quiet she was.”

Rick sat beside him, close enough that Daryl could almost make out his features, and ran a hand along Judith’s head. “We were really lucky with this one, a real miracle baby. Spending so much time on the road with an infant…” Rick trailed off and then suddenly laughed. “If it had been Carl, we’d have been toast day one. He was such a screamer, and everything would set him off. The TV was too far away, not being allowed to crawl on the table, if we didn’t give him second breakfast… Sometimes I wonder how we made it through that first year without going crazy.” There was a long pause as Judith glowed under their attention, then Rick added, “He’d have made a great older brother, though.”

“Yeah, he will.” 

“Daryl, I-”

“Nah,” Daryl cut him off, trying to balance firm and casual. He wasn’t going to be the reason Rick didn’t find his family, and he couldn’t stand the anguish that had started to color Rick’s voice. “We’re gonna find them. Ain’t got nothin’ better to do than look, anyhow.”

Rick shook his head, sighing. “I appreciate the thought, but you can’t look when you can’t see.”

“The hell I can’t,” Daryl growled, though he wasn’t sure how much was false bravado and how much was injured pride. “Can still see some, an’ I can hear an’ smell. Bet ’m still better than you out there.” Provided he didn’t have to shoot anything.

“You have to stay here,” Rick argued, anger creeping into his tone. “You have to stay where it’s safe, and you have to protect Judith.”

“Ya think it’s safe here?” Daryl scoffed. “Jus’ one bad cryin’ fit from drawin’ in a herd. Ya think this place will stand up to that?”

Rick let out a frustrated grunt and curled his arms around his knees. “What do you propose, then?”

“Head back to the sheriff’s office.” It was more defensible at least. Thick brick walls, fences; it would do much better to keep her safe when they weren’t out gathering supplies and looking for the others.

“I know that makes more sense.” Rick admitted, hand coming up to rub against his forehead. “Those MREs aren’t going to last us forever, and probably not long enough for me to get the hang of your bow. It’s just… part of me feels like we’d be abandoning Tara and the others all over again.”

“Didn’t abandon them. We covered their backs best we could without gettin’ eaten ourselves. Not like I could track them anyway. Even if my vision wasn’t shit and it hadn’t snowed, the herd would have trampled over any trace.”

“Wouldn’t make a difference,” Rick pointed out, knocking their shoulders together. “If they’re alive, there’s no way they could have stuck around. They’re long gone.”

“Then we should go, too.”

“Yeah,” Rick agreed, “we’ll go.”

=====.o0o.=====

Jane turned to meet her gaze from across the street, and she waggled her fingers at Maggie in an overly friendly gesture before entering the schoolhouse. Maggie cursed, kicking at the wall beside her, and started back to her house. She wondered how long Jane had been aware of her tail, how long she’d been playing decoy while Maggie hunted for an ulterior motive in her every move. It was a lot of time wasted and could have put them all in more danger.

“You look upset,” Glenn commented as she stormed into the kitchen. He gave her a peck on the cheek, and she tried to force her emotions down.

“Jane saw me.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.” Scraping some onions into a pot on the stove, Glenn set aside his utensils and turned to look at her. Beth continued to work quietly on dinner at the opposing counter. “She’s been here for weeks and nothing bad has happened. Maybe it’s time to cut her a little slack.”

“Or she’s just biding her time,” Maggie grumbled. She’d been dead set against Jane and her people living in Woodbury from the moment they let them inside the main gates and Jane pled her case to stay with precise, nearly arrogant arguments. Even as a rag-tag group of survivors, as she put it, she still looked down her nose at the whole town. Maybe Maggie was just personally offended by her demeanor. 

Maggie had been trounced in a 4-1 vote. Andrea was of the belief that everyone deserved a chance to live in Woodbury, provided there was no specific call for concern or safety hazards. Although dubious about taking in so many people at one time, Martinez was practically salivating at the sort of recruits Jane offered: capable, self-sufficient, survivors. They’d be an asset on scavenging runs, which were becoming more and more vital as the months went on. Milton said it was logical to continue to expand their population to be a stronger force against outsiders or herds, and particularly necessary as they’d lost so many to the flu. Dr. Stevens simply pointed out that Jane was already there. Not offering safe haven would likely make them enemies and a hostile force that knows their location. 

Maggie could understand all their arguments, but she knew a bad idea when she saw one.

“I’ll watch her,” Carl volunteered, stepping into the kitchen with an excited grin on his face. “It’ll be like a secret mission. And no one ever suspects kids.”

“Uh… no. That’s too dangerous for you.”

“Oh, come on. Do you have any idea how boring it’s been around here since… since Mom started working with Hershel?” The medical building was operating at a severe shortage since they lost Dr. S to the flu, Dr. Stevens was working double to try to meet council needs and stay available for injuries, and Tyler, the up and coming assistant, was gone. Lori and Beth had both been working there to try to pick up the slack, but it was an awful reminder of their losses. Carl seemed to be feeling Carol’s absence the most as she’d also taken the only other two kids his age. It still struck a cord that Carol, a close friend for so long, could so easily walk away from them all. Maggie hoped she was okay out there.

“We’ll just ask your mom,” Glenn declared, eliciting a whine from the boy.

“She’s never going to say yes.”

Maggie nodded along, “Then we obviously shouldn’t either.”

“I’ll do it,” Michonne offered, sliding into the room behind Carl. It shouldn’t surprise Maggie to see her there when she often showed up around dinner time to eat and run, but the quiet of her footfalls still managed to take her by surprise. 

“What about your job?” Maggie asked, glancing between her and Glenn. 

Michonne worked as a scout, meandering outside the walls of Woodbury in a ten mile radius for hours each day. She’d make sure the roads were clear, and there weren’t any herds heading their way. She’d look for signs of anything useful for the scavenging crew to collect or take stock of natural resources, like lumber or mushrooms. A couple times a week, she’d stretch out further, prowling like a lioness contemplating the expansion of her territory.

It had only become her official job after months into their stay at Woodbury. Every other person in town, thirteen and up, had some sort of job, and it took that long for someone to note and complain about the absence of Michonne’s name on the rosters. Andrea had offered her the title of scout with the exact same job description, on the one condition she take someone with her. It was an olive branch if Maggie had ever seen one, but Michonne wasn’t interested in teaming up with anyone from Woodbury.   
“What is your problem?” Andrea vented at her, oblivious or ignoring that Maggie and Glenn were still in the room. “We live here now. We’re part of Woodbury. You need to trust these people, or you’re just going to hurt yourself.”

Michonne didn’t respond, didn’t even look at Andrea, and Andrea was just about to storm away, when Glenn spoke up. “I’ll go with her.”

Suddenly, they were both looking his way, and he smiled awkwardly. Maggie knew exactly what her sweetheart of a boyfriend was doing. If the two women who’d been so close when they all reunited in that Walmart parking lot couldn’t quite reach each other on their own, he wanted to try to help them connect. 

“Michonne won’t be alone, and she also won’t have to go with someone from Woodbury. I’m already going out for scavenging, so it’s hardly a change in my role.”

It didn’t do everything Glenn had hoped, but Andrea and Michonne were less abrasive, if not drifting back together. It was more than Maggie had accomplished with her months of subtle prodding, and Andrea’s complete refusal to share. There was something at the heart of their falling out that Maggie was afraid might be too damaged to repair.

The pot started to boil over, and Beth rushed to adjust the heat. 

“Relax,” Glenn comforted, pressing a kiss to Maggie’s cheek. “I won’t go out without her. We can just, I don’t know, cut our days short. Maybe alternate days.” Glenn had always been fond of compromises. He wanted to see everyone happy, or at least avoid the hurt. It was part of why, Maggie thought in the privacy of her own mind, she was a better leader than Glenn. She could make the calls that put one side in the right and the other side in the wrong, and she could deal with the consequences if she chose incorrectly. At the end of the day, she was glad that Glenn struggled to do any of that, and she was also glad that he wasn’t their leader anymore. 

Michonne nodded. “Bigger threat is inside the walls now, anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Graphic cannibalistic imagery in a nightmare.


	3. King County

There was a truck sitting in the driveway of the cabin, if one were to call two divots worn in the grass a driveway. Rick had taken it in on their third day when he ventured into the front yard. At first, it seemed like a stroke of good luck, especially when he located the keys in the pockets of the walker he’d removed from the cabin that first night, but their luck ended there. The truck wouldn’t start and the map in the dashboard revealed that they were truly in the middle of nowhere. 

Now that they were angling to leave, Rick took renewed interest in the vehicle and the map. He plotted out their route without any input from Daryl, who seemed content to let the current take him, so long as it was away from this place. He played with Judith while Rick traced over the roads with his fingers, cataloging alternate routes and possible problems. 

Detouring to pick up the remaining supplies from the crash site would add time to their trip, particularly given the extra precautions he’d have to take lugging it back to their truck without attracting attention from the sizeable herd still occupying the ravine, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave behind food that could keep the three of them going for weeks. He’d have hated doing it before, and with Daryl’s new disability, it was going to be harder than ever to keep them fed. 

And that was all assuming they could get their ride running. 

“Don’t suppose you took a look at the truck already?”

Daryl perked up, getting to his feet and bending back over to lift Judith. “Truck?” 

For about the hundredth time that week, Rick pondered exactly how bad Daryl’s vision had become that he could miss the red pick-up parked about a dozen feet away from the front door. “You mean to tell me that you actually stayed inside while I was gone like I told you to?”

Daryl shrugged dismissively, unwilling to fess up to being well behaved. “Somethin’ wrong with it?”

“Won’t start.” Rick accepted Judith and handed over the keys, walking Daryl outside like he wasn’t playing seeing eye-dog. He double checked that his python was at his hip and they were both armed with a knife before circling the cabin to confirm there were no walkers nearby. Daryl had already popped the hood and shoved his head inside by the time he returned.

“Prolly jus’ the battery,” Daryl suggested. The task of getting it going without another car to use for a jump-start was going to be challenging, if not impossible, but Daryl looked positively chipper at the prospect of getting his hands dirty and making use of his skills, and Rick was overjoyed to see him in good spirits. He should have dragged his friend outside and set him on this chore ages ago.

Daryl assured him that the cabin was well-stocked and assigned him the role of gofer while he worked. Rick was momentarily torn about leaving him unguarded, but he’d already scoped out the area. “Don’t need a damn babysitter,” Daryl grumbled when he hesitated. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with my ears.”

It didn’t take long for Daryl to get the truck running, and while the gas gauge pointed towards disappointment, Rick recalled that there was still a full can stowed among the supplies at the crash site. They let it idle while they loaded up their small collection of belongings, not much expanded since the desperate flee through the woods. Daryl had taken the time over the last week to systematically comb the cabin for everything he felt was worth keeping and pile it into a duffle bag. Rick added that on top of the stack of blankets before surveying the cabin for anything they might have overlooked.

He wouldn’t miss this place, even if it had kept them alive. 

The sun was high in the cloudless sky when they left and the temperature was warm enough that Rick cracked his window to let in a breeze. Daryl had fashioned a sort of car seat from junk lying around (and Rick was infinitely grateful he’d spent his time working on that project instead of a baby-sized crossbow), but Rick still peeked inside each car they came across while they siphoned every last drop of gas. Eventually, he spotted a proper car seat, thankfully devoid of blood splatters, and strapped Judith down. First mission accomplished and enough fuel to reach the bridge, they were able to speed up, making better progress as they cruised down the highway. 

“Why are we headin’ south again?” Daryl asked after they’d been chugging along for some time. Rick didn’t think Daryl had been paying any attention to where they were going and wasn’t entirely certain how he’d correctly interpreted their direction. “This ‘bout them supplies at the bridge? Ain’t worth it, Rick.”

It was beginning to get dark, and Rick was on the lookout for a good place to pull over for the night. Sleeping in the cab wasn’t ideal, but it was a far cry better than working unnecessarily in the dark. He parked at the edge of the road a few miles out with plans to get a bit closer in the morning before he went after the last of the supplies from Fort Benning. 

“We’re going to need that food, and there’s more gas there, too. It’s an acceptable risk. End of discussion.” Daryl snorted and rolled onto his side, and Rick resisted the urge to bang his head against the steering wheel. “Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” 

“Fine.” Daryl grunted, irritation evident. “Tie me up.”

Rick pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering if they were going to spend the entire night arguing and why Daryl couldn’t see that their situation had changed. “I can’t tie you up. It’s too dangerous. We may need to run or fight, and I’m not putting you in a situation where you can’t defend yourself.”

“An’ I ain’t puttin’ you in that situation, sleepin’ next to a time-bomb.”

“There’s no reason to believe that there’s any danger of you turning.”

“An’ no reason to believe there ain’t,” Daryl bit back. Then, like a switch, he sounded exhausted. “I’ll jus’ sleep in the bed.”

Rick snagged his arm and pulled him closer before he could step out of the truck. “Absolutely not. I’m not leaving you to sleep out there exposed to any wandering walker that gets the munchies.”

Closing his door with a huff, Daryl grumbled, “Safer than camping at the quarry.”

“Maybe. But we were idiots back then. Just go to sleep.” Rick instructed, tossing a blanket on top of his companion. “I’ll stay up, and make sure nothing happens.”

As a testament to how tired he was, Daryl gave up his protests and didn’t even argue that he should keep first watch. “Wake me up in a couple hours.”

“Sure.”

Rick watched the last of the sunlight disappear behind the treeline and wondered how long Daryl intended to keep this up, and, more importantly, if he had a point. Was Rick letting hope and relief get in the way of caution? He breathed deeply for a few minutes and tried to think about the situation logically. 

Daryl wasn’t sick, and he wasn’t showing any symptoms aside from the white, cloudy growth that had taken over his eyes. It might be some sort of filmy layer like cataracts, something that could potentially be removed to correct his vision like Rick’s grandfather had done, but that wasn’t something he dared bring up to his friend, lest he insist that Rick try to remove it and probably permanently lose what little vision remained in his eyes. No, Rick intended to keep that thought to himself unless they happened upon an ophthalmologist carting around some sort of specialized laser. 

He busied himself with preparing a bottle for when Judith next woke up, hoping he’d catch her before she got loud and drew in walkers. It kept his hands busy, but his mind and eyes drifted back to his companion. 

When Daryl said his name that first time after his eyes changed, Rick had collapsed in relief. He knew it didn’t necessarily mean that Daryl was immune. It didn’t mean that he was out of the woods. It didn’t mean anything except that Daryl’s bite had manifested in a way they hadn’t seen before. Still, there was no repressing the hope that swelled in his chest every time Daryl spoke, and it only grew as the days passed and the signs of sickness abated. By the third day, Daryl was regularly getting up and moving around, and by the fifth, he reluctantly accepted the task of watching over Judith unsupervised. After a week, they began the ritual of arguing over tying Daryl up while he slept, an argument that Daryl was getting increasingly adamant about instead of less. On this matter, Daryl wasn’t budging, and Rick was starting to think there was more to it than he’d admitted. 

Rick reviewed everything they knew about the walker infection, but the reality was that there wasn’t much information despite its prevalence. Jim was the only experience they had of someone being bit but not killed outright, and while he’d lasted more than a day, he’d gotten distinctly worse over time. Of course, they hadn’t seen him turn, so maybe Jim could have made it under the right circumstances. On the other hand, Shane had become a walker without ever being bit, so Dr. Jenner’s assertion that they would all turn after death wasn’t as crazy as he’d first believed. And that meant that they were all somehow changed, mutated or infected. 

Jenner was so far from a cure that he couldn’t even identify the source as viral, fungal, parasitic, or even magic, but he seemed to grasp how it spread in the body. Rick remembered him comparing it to meningitis. The general gist, as he understood it, was that the body shut down from fever and then the infection restarted the most basic brain functions. So, theoretically, Daryl being hypothermic when he should have been running a fever could have saved his life. 

Maybe Daryl won the genetic lottery and was naturally immune. Tyler had written about it in his journal, and if his grandmother thought it was possible, Rick had enough respect for Judith’s intelligence and abilities to give it extra consideration even before Daryl survived a bite. Now, it seemed even more likely. 

Daryl shifted and came abruptly awake as Rick laid Judith down after a late-night snack. He was breathing in shallow, quick gasps, and Rick immediately slid closer and took up the mantra that had proven most effective. “I’m okay, Judith’s okay, we’re all okay. We’re not bit. Everything is fine.”

After a minute, Daryl coughed and settled against his seat without looking in Rick’s direction. “Ya can sleep now.”

Rick wanted to protest, but he doubted Daryl would go back to sleep any time soon, so he just nodded, settling against his own door and propping his feet in Daryl’s lap uninvited. Daryl let out a little huff but didn’t make any effort to extricate himself, and even though Rick didn’t think he’d be able to drift off with so much on his mind, Daryl’s comforting presence sent him straight into slumber. It didn’t even occur to him until much later that Daryl might not be the best person to keep on watch.

Rick woke to the first rays of sunshine trickling in through the windshield and landing on his face, coupled with Daryl’s gentle insistence that he didn’t need to get up yet. Rick ignored him, stretching out and sitting up properly, barely avoiding the car horn, before rubbing at his eyes. “I should get a move on if we want to make it back to King County before dark.” He yawned. “Should only take three or four trips, maybe a couple hours to load up.”

“Less. I’m comin’, too.”

Rick let out a long-suffering sigh. “Someone has to stay here and watch Judith, and of the two of us, I’m better suited to sneak in there without getting killed.” He put a reassuring hand on Daryl’s shoulder, but it was immediately knocked off. “Listen-”

“No, you listen. ‘Member back when we were at the library patchin’ up yer leg an’ ya called me a shit leader since I didn’t give ya any choices? Well, you’re bein’ a shit leader. Ain’t given me a single choice since ya found out I got bit.” 

“What do you want? We can’t bring Judith into that herd.”

“I want to stick together. I want ya to trust me to watch yer back. An’ I want ya to stop wading through a herd to get supplies when there are safer ways to stay fed. We can still hunt without a bow or a gun, ya know. An’ we’re already gonna be clearin’ houses while we look for the others. Or were ya plannin’ on leavin’ me behind for that, too?”

Rick hadn’t put much thought into it, but he would prefer Daryl safely tucked away somewhere while he went out to scavenge and search. But there was nowhere left that felt secure enough to leave his mostly blind companion alone with a five month old child. No, he wanted Daryl with him as often as possible. He wouldn’t have even suggested leaving him alone in a car that he couldn’t drive with a potentially noisy baby and breakable glass if he didn’t know he was heading into something more dangerous. 

Daryl was right about the food. They could trap animals regularly now that winter had well and truly passed. Hell, with Daryl setting the traps, they’d probably be a lot more likely to get some fresh meat than Rick’s futile attempts at hunting. And while he didn’t relish the idea of abandoning the extra food, repairing his relationship with Daryl was more important at the moment. They could always return if they ended up in dire straights since the herd would incidentally protect their loot. 

There was still a problem, though. “We need the gas. We’re not going to make it back with what we’ve got, and we’ll need more to do a proper search.”

“We’ll find more. There’s cars all over the place.”

Rick stuck the key back in the ignition, started the truck and made a sweeping U-turn to face the other direction. Daryl didn’t say anything in response, but there was no way he could have missed the silent apology, and the tension dissipated between them as they drove towards King County. 

After a few minutes of silence, he leaned forward to hit the power button on the CD player. Listening to music had often been an antidote to fighting with Lori, distracting if it couldn’t soothe, and it made road trips pass faster. The system blared, and Rick quickly turned it to a reasonable level. It was an oldie called “Action Packed,” and he started snapping his fingers along with the catchy beat. 

“Please don’t,” Daryl moaned from beside him. 

Rick grinned. “You don’t like music?” 

“I like music. Don’t know what ya’d call that.”

“It’s Ronnie Dee,” Rick informed him, like he misunderstood the point. He wondered what qualified as music in Daryl’s book and if they liked any of the same bands. It was a reminder that they were very different people who might never have even crossed paths had the world not ended. He’d have gone right along being best friends with Shane, never knowing the sort of betrayal his partner was capable of, and Daryl would have gone right on skulking in the shadow of his older brother, never knowing how much he was worth. And if they had met, they probably wouldn’t have been friends, and definitely not anything more. “What’s your favorite band?”

Daryl leaned over and after careful inspection, turned off the music. “Don’t got one.”

“Everyone’s got a favorite band.” 

“Not me.”

Rick waited a beat, tapping his fingertips against the steering wheel. He was suddenly filled with so many questions, the sort he might have asked on a first date, the things he used to believe one needed to know about a person before deciding whether or not they should become involved. “Favorite book?”

“What makes ya think I read?” Daryl retorted.

“You read  _ The Quick and the Dead _ ,” Rick pointed out. “Picked it out, too. Maybe that one’s your favorite?”

“Sure.” 

Probably not, then. “Star Wars or Star Trek?”

“What’s with the twenty-questions?” Daryl snapped. “This ain’t some road trip with the family. If all you’re gonna do is play trash music an’ ask dumbass questions, lemme out here an’ I’ll walk.” 

Rick audibly shut his mouth. He thought his questions were harmless fun, but Daryl had sounded genuinely frustrated. He wasn’t exactly the sharing type, but Rick had always figured that had more to do with a misplaced belief that no one was interested. Perhaps Daryl was actively trying to bury his past. Or maybe he was just tired, cranky from not getting enough sleep, plagued with night terrors and the stress of his new situation.

He let the matter drop, left Daryl to his quiet and concentrated on the road. The hours ticked by and the sun rose high in the sky. They were dangerously low on fuel now with miles to go.

“Star Trek.”

“Huh?” Rick looked up, surprised by the content and presence of a response. Star Trek struck him more for girls for some reason he had trouble putting a name to, not that he was going to tell Daryl that.

“It was about hope. Humanity got better. Star Wars was all about fighting, just with different technology,” Daryl muttered. “Not that I watched that sci fi shit.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” That was a lie; he’d had the Star Wars series on his movie shelf, forced Shane to watch the new ones with him and listen to him rant about how bad they were. He wondered if Daryl could hear the lie and changed the topic. “There’s a cell in the Sheriff’s Department.”

“I remember.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure a walker can’t manage locks. We can give you the keys, and you can sleep in there. I don’t have to worry about you being tied up, you don’t have to worry about being loose.”

Daryl mulled it over, and Rick gave him time, half convinced that he’d call it a cage or a kennel and refuse to be sequestered there, no matter how illogical when he spent the last two weeks tied up. “Yeah, alright,” Daryl finally conceded. 

The truck spluttered and came to a halt a few miles shy of the finish line. Rick swallowed the sarcastic comment about an ‘unexpected’ predicament and gave Daryl a side-eye, suddenly anxious about taking him along, but they couldn’t just stay there. 

“Got your knives?”

Daryl snorted. “Kinda question is that?”

Rick shrugged and slid out of the truck. He tucked the keys into his pocket and strapped a gas can to his belt in case they got lucky before they reached the station. Daryl had already strapped on the duffle bag and was pulling Judith from the car seat. 

“I’ll take her.”

“Don’t mind. You should be ready for walkers.”

“We both need to be ready for walkers,” Rick declared, hoping it would sound like the compliment he meant it as. “I only need one hand to shoot.”

“Ain’t gonna drop her,” Daryl protested, frown already creeping onto his face. Rick thought he might be projecting his own worries and congratulated himself on pre-emptively relieving that burden.

“But you’re not using a gun or even your bow. You’ll jostle her too much while you’re kicking ass.”

Daryl snorted, smile lifting one side of his face as he handed off the baby before he ducked his head and adjusted his straps. 

It was surprisingly comforting to have Daryl at his back as they walked at a brisk pace toward what he hoped would become their base camp. The hunter might not be able to see trouble coming, but he was more capable than Rick had given him credit for. He knew that Daryl wouldn’t let anything, living or dead, sneak up behind them, and he’d certainly be able to take down a walker in close combat.

They made it to King County’s Sheriff Department without incident, outpacing the few walkers that appeared instead of putting them down. There was no sign of disturbance, but it never hurt to be extra cautious. They scouted around the building and double checked that the inside had remained clear in their absence. 

They had the door barricaded closed behind them before the sun set. Daryl went straight to work fixing Judith a bottle while Rick located the giant blown up map of King County and the surrounding areas. At the top was the outskirts of Atlanta and to the south, it stretched past Newnan, almost down to LaGrange, in one direction and Griffin in the other. He pulled the rolling bulletin board out the main room and stuck a red pin into it at their location, then stuck a second pin at Hershel’s farm. Daryl wasn’t paying his efforts any mind, which was just as well because he probably couldn’t see the map.

“So, we know that they wouldn’t have gone north from Hershel’s, and they’d have had to stick near populated areas to get food. They’d have looked for small towns to clear, nothing too big. I’d guess they’d stick between I-75 and I-85. Familiar area and the same trajectory they were already heading.” Rick traced his lands along the map. “So we search the small towns there: Haralson, Alvaton, Greenville, Woodbury, Molena, Concord.”

Daryl was quiet for a solid minute, but Rick knew he wanted to say something, so he waited. “Lotta towns to check out. Lotta guesswork. Could just as well have hopped on a boat or took a train to Nebraska.”

“Could be,” Rick conceded. “But it’s the best we’ve got to go on, and we’ve got nothing better to do than look, right?”

Daryl nodded at the use of his own words and scooted an opened can towards him. He was sitting on the floor with Judith sprawled out on a blanket, gnawing on a chew toy that wasn’t strictly designed for babies, but it was clean and she was thrilled by the squeaks it was emitting. He was working through his dinner with as much eagerness as one might approach dog food, but he didn’t complain. Daryl had eaten all kinds of detestable things in their time together and the worst he’d ever claimed was that he wasn’t hungry. 

Rick, on the other hand, was famished, and finished off his meal in record time. When he was done, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out his next suggestion, uncertain how Daryl was going to react when they came into view inches from his face. 

“Aviators?”

“My favorite pair.” Rick sat down, tickling Judith’s foot and trying to subconsciously imply that the gift was no big deal. Daryl slid them on even though it was too dark for sunglasses. “I’d rather no one catches a look at your eyes and shoots you thinking you’re a walker.”


	4. Baby on the Bridge

Daryl rolled over in his cot and stared up at the barred window, hoping that if he glared hard enough, the sun would rise sooner. He certainly wasn’t getting any more sleep that night, but if he tried to get up now, Rick would look at him with concern and pity. The former cop was fastidious about ensuring he had a full eight hours as often as possible. Daryl didn’t have any trouble falling asleep; he dropped off as soon as his head hit the pillow most nights. The problem was that every night was plagued by terrors, horrendous visions of eating Rick alive intertwined so frequently with sex that he thought the bite must have rewired his brain. It left him feeling on edge and sick to his stomach every morning.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and Daryl turned his head, though he knew that he wouldn’t be able to make out any forms in the distance. He didn’t need to. It could only be Rick stirring stealthily out of his bedding and tip-toeing about the room. The fact that he didn’t just head for the door meant he probably wasn’t awake to take a piss.

“Goin’ some place?” Daryl asked into the darkness, keeping his voice low to avoid waking Judith. Rick froze and with his stillness, he blended into the background again, but Daryl knew where he was, so he kept his eyes pinned on that spot as he sat up. 

“Thought I was being quiet.” Rick swung a pack onto his back, and fastened his gun belt, the light clanking of metal giving away the source of his movements, no longer making an attempt to stay silent.

“Saw you.” Daryl slid on his shoes and stood, fishing around for the keys from the floor beside his cot.

Rick stopped what he was doing and eagerly padded over to the cell. “You saw me? Is your vision…?” 

“Nah.” Daryl shook his head and unlocked the cell door. “Just easier to see things that move.”

That gave Rick pause, though Daryl wasn’t close enough to make out his expression, and then he said, “So your vision’s based on movement? Like a T-Rex?”

“Uh.” Daryl blinked, unsure what to make of the child-like glee Rick was exuding. “Everybody sees better if there’s contrast. Colors, movement. Animals, too. Where you goin’, again?”

“Not far,” Rick replied, shiftily. “Just a couple blocks to see if Morgan is still in town.”

Daryl considered if whacking him upside the head might bring some sense back. “Thought you was done with that guy. Two times tryin’ to kill ya ain’t enough?”

“I just want to know if he’s there. I wasn’t going to invite him over for a slumber party. And if he’s not, maybe he left some gas behind.” 

“What happened to stickin’ together?” Daryl tried to stamp down on his anger, if only for Judith’s sake. It only took one day for Rick to second guess his faith in Daryl’s ability to watch his back. 

“Hey.” Rick took a step closer, his face starting to come into focus as he grasped Daryl’s shoulders. “We’re sticking together, but there’s a difference between you watching my back for walkers and knowingly dragging you towards someone who’s dangerous.”

“All the more reason for me to come,” Daryl insisted. “Can keep walkers off yer back while ya deal with him. Or I can fire in his direction, pin him down. He don’t know I can’t see.”

“And Judith?” 

“Ya already made this choice, back at the pond. She's dead if either of us die. ‘S all of us or none of us.”

Daryl thought Rick would get frustrated, redirecting his worry through anger, and they’d be back arguing in circles. They didn’t used to argue. Daryl had been content to follow Rick’s lead until Rick decided Daryl was in need of protection. He didn’t need protection; there was no room for people who couldn’t pull their weight in this world, and he was not one of them. 

Instead, Rick gripped both sides of his face and kissed him before he had any chance to protest. Daryl wasn’t interested in stopping him. He let his eyes slip closed and dragged Rick closer, wondering when this sort of communication had become easier than their stilted conversations or their precise little signals. It didn’t come as a surprise when Rick broke for air and breathed, “Okay.” 

They didn’t bother going back to bed after that, heading to Morgan’s old hideout instead. Judith was strapped into a carrier on Rick’s back, giggling at her new position and stretching her arms towards Daryl as he trudged along behind. He made faces at her while they walked and took his sunglasses off and on and off again as he tried to decide if the additional darkness was hindering his vision further. He left them on.

As they drew closer, they exerted more caution, slowing down and stepping lightly through the streets even though the predawn darkness blanketed them. Daryl was counting streets and buildings, noting his environment and path in a manner he wasn’t accustomed to and trying to orient himself properly from his new perspective. It was exhausting.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Rick said, coming to a halt as they reached the intersection where Daryl recalled seeing spiked barrels and other traps. In his immediate surroundings, the blurry objects appeared much the same. 

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” he prodded. 

“Right. Looks like Morgan burned down his old place. Couple of the buildings are gone. Not sure if he meant that to happen or they just got caught up in the flames.” 

Rick pressed forward instead of drawing back, and Daryl followed as Rick scouted out the burnt bones of the building. It was hard to tell if it was structurally sound from his limited vantage point, so he had to have faith that Rick’s assessment was solid and they weren’t putting themselves in unnecessary danger. Just one more addition to the long list of things he no longer had control over. He couldn’t imagine much of use survived the flames, and Rick seemed to agree, quickly shifting items aside with his foot, but otherwise uninterested in the destruction. 

Finally, Rick eyed the scorched stairs and turned around with a sigh. “You don’t suppose he was in here, do you?”

“Doubt it,” Daryl replied, hoping it was more of a comfort to Rick than the threat he heard in his own head. “Bastard lit plenty enough fires without gettin’ caught in those.”

“Yeah.”

“Should get the truck,” Daryl prompted when Rick lingered in the doorway with a contemplative look. “Better if we ain’t on foot.”

“We’ll need gas,” Rick commented, “and I bet Morgan stripped the whole town of it while he was here. Probably burned it, too.” 

“Doubt he got all of it. ‘Member what they did at Fort Benning?”

“We don’t have a generator,” Rick pointed out, “and we don’t have the gas to run one if we did.”

Daryl shrugged. “Most of them big chain gas stations have back-up generators.”

It took most of the morning to locate a manual pump from a hardware store and a gas station with a generator sitting innocuously behind the building, until the sun was high in the sky and warm enough to make him sweat heavily as he worked the pump they’d swiped from a hardware store. It was attached to a long hose dropped into the storage tanks below the gas station, and it seemed to take ages for the liquid to crawl up the line and into their bright red gas can. 

“That ought to do it,” Rick decided, clapping Daryl on the back and giving him a hand up. Daryl rose to his feet and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm before lifting the can. The amount was disappointingly small as he poured it into the generator, but they wouldn’t need to run the generator long. Once they got the regular gas pumps turned on, the process could run itself. 

Rick had taken the time while he was working to line up every gas cannister he could find from both the hardware store and the gas station, seven in total, in front of the pump. Once Daryl started the generator and switched on the pumps, Rick began filling each of them. 

Daryl let him do the work, waiting idly by the generator to turn it off as soon as it was no longer needed, watching Rick and trying to make out his precise form amongst the blurry images. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the groans of a walker, close enough that he could smell it. 

Darting out of the way, Daryl turned and drew his knife, stabbing it as it lurched towards the noisy generator. They hadn’t seen a walker all day long, and he’d been careless, forgetting that the sounds from all their activity could easily draw in danger, and he hadn’t been able to hear it over the ruckus until it was almost too late. There was a second walker approaching, and Daryl took care of that one as well just before Rick waved broadly for him to shut down the machine. 

“You alright?” Rick asked a few minutes later, gas can in hand. He poured it into the generator for later use.

“Fine.” Daryl hoped he didn’t look as startled as he felt. “Let’s get outta here. All that noise is bound to attract more than just those two.”

Rick stashed two of the gas cans behind the counter, and they each took two in hand to carry back with them. It was mostly silent for a long time before Rick spoke. “Thought for a moment I’d have to shoot them. Not exactly something I wanted to do surrounded by gas cans. I only noticed a few seconds before you.”

“Pshh,” Daryl muttered. “I heard ‘em comin’.”

“Right. And you were lulling them into a sense of security by keeping your back turned.”

“Damn straight.”

Rick chuckled and elbowed Daryl playfully before turning serious. “We’ve gotta be more careful.”

“I will.”

“We will,” Rick insisted. “It’s my job to watch your back, so it’s my fault if you get eaten.”

Daryl pushed down the uneasy swell in his stomach at the mention of people getting eaten. “We’ll be more careful.”

They dropped all but one can off at the sheriff’s department on their way up the road. Daryl contemplated suggesting they take over a different vehicle that was already in town, but the truck was in excellent condition and already had some useful supplies remaining in the bed, so it would be worth the extra effort to fetch it. 

The truck was still sitting where they left it, untouched in their brief absence. Daryl helped Judith off of Rick’s back and settled her into the car seat before sliding in the passenger’s seat and settling his feet on the dash. 

“Plenty of light left,” Rick commented as they drove into town. “What do you say we head out today?”

Daryl shrugged, slipping his thumb into his mouth to gnaw at the corner of his nail. “No time like the present.”

They paused at their base camp just long enough to load some essentials. Daryl couldn’t make out enough to determine where they were going, although the direction of the sun suggested it was south. Rick had probably calculated which town to check out first and determined the best route on his own, and Daryl was too tired to involve himself in a process that didn’t need his attention. All he needed to do was follow Rick, watch his back, and head to King County if they got separated. 

Leaning his head back, Daryl closed his eyes. Time drifted past, a few hours at least, but he wasn’t going to fall asleep with the fragments of his nightmares floating through his mind. His eyes were itchy and dry, screaming for rest. Overall, he felt out of sorts. Not injured, not sick, not depressed, just different, and not in a good way. And Rick kept asking questions he didn’t know how to answer. 

“Hey. You alright?” Like that one.

“Fine,” Daryl grunted.

“You know, I-” Rick cut himself off, and Daryl felt the truck rapidly slow down. 

He sat up straight, leaning forward like it could help him make out anything in the blurry mass of road in front of him. “Walkers?”

“Traffic jam. I don’t think we’ll have any luck getting through that. We’ll have to backtrack a bit and try another way around.”

“Mmm.” 

Rick hadn’t waited for his response before making a wide U-turn, passenger side treading on grass briefly, then picked up the pace. “Saw a turnoff about a mile back,” Rick remarked. “With any luck, we can loop around this wreck and pick back up on the same road.” 

Daryl didn’t give his input about the map in the dash and the waste of gas if he’d guessed wrong and they got lost. It didn’t matter. There was no time limit and with a gas pump available for their use, they had more gas than they could use in a year. Rick turned onto the new road, less well kept, judging by the way they bumped around in their seats. He instinctively checked on Judith, but the disturbance hadn’t woken her. 

A minute later, Daryl heard a peculiar sound and gave a confused glance down at Judith before cracking his window. There it was, louder and getting closer.

“Is that a baby?” Rick asked, cracking his own window. He sped up a little. Part of him would hold out the hope it was Lori, no matter how remote the chance. She’d have likely given birth by now, assuming she was still alive. Regardless, there was no way they could ignore such a pitiful cry for help. The wails continued, increasing in volume, until Rick stopped the truck. “Get ready. Walkers.”

Daryl nodded, pulling out both his gun and knife and pushing open his door. He was careful to shut it behind himself, cognizant of their own precious cargo even as they rushed forward to help someone else’s child. 

He stuck to Rick’s back and let him scope out the situation, only processing that they were on a bridge once he was walking on the wooden structure. Rick started firing at whatever lay in front, and Daryl cleared off two walkers as they made for Rick’s back, like they could see an open target. 

Daryl was practically on top of the car by the time he saw it, the screaming went on inside, and he darted around the back to grip the walker crawling in through the hatch by its shirt and drag it back out, driving the door down on its head with all his might, bone and blood splattering around the back. 

Rick was still firing which meant there was a decent number of walkers that they’d run headlong into. He couldn’t be sure how many people. There was the baby and someone holding her, but there could be more elsewhere. Daryl pushed the concerns to the side, concentrating on stabbing the walkers pressing themselves to the windshield and windows. They didn’t even glance at him, not with the baby screaming behind the glass. 

By the time he was finished, Rick had either run out of bullets or the walkers were down. He held his breath and tried to listen above the sounds of the baby, but he couldn’t hear any more fighting. “Rick?”

“Over here,” Rick responded promptly, and Daryl could see him waving in a large, sweeping gesture that would get his attention. As he approached, he heard the shuffle of feet and made out two other figures. They weren’t moving to attack, but Daryl didn’t relax at all until he heard them speaking. 

“Gracias, señores. Salvaste mi vida y mi familia. ¿Hablas español?”

“Uh, no, sorry. I only know like ten words in Spanish, lo siento,” Rick replied before turning to face Daryl. “Maybe we should stick with these guys. They could use our help, and we’d be better off with more people.”

Something unnameable was bubbling up inside of Daryl at the suggestion. He tried to swallow it down, but the sensation remained. He felt jittery, and there wasn’t enough air. “No. Hell, no. We don’t need these people. They can’t hardly look after themselves.” Daryl clenched his eyes shut as he sucked in a deep breath, comforted that the action would be hidden by his sunglasses. “An’ we don’t know if we can trust them an inch. Fuck that.” He couldn’t trust them, and he couldn’t trust himself. He shouldn’t be around Judith, but he couldn’t tear himself from her, either. He could still save this other kid from the monster he felt brewing inside. 

“Únete a nosotros.” The other stranger was speaking now, slowly, gesturing too, but Daryl couldn’t make out the specifics. “Nosotros somos mas fuertes juntos.”

“Don’t be like that, Daryl. I’ve got a good feeling about these guys. Besides, they’ve got a baby, too.” 

Rick stretched out an arm to grip his shoulder, but Daryl shook it off, taking a step back. He channeled his inner Merle, turning to the two men across from them and letting loose the hate-filled rants he’d heard often enough as a child to have memorized. He didn’t even know the exact words he was saying, and didn’t think they knew enough English that it mattered that he was using slurs. The tone probably would have been sufficient, but he wasn’t sure how to make the tone properly without the corresponding language. 

The strangers didn’t bother responding. They hurried back to their car, and Daryl stalked back to their truck. Judith had woken up while they were away, unable to sleep through the gunfire and was sobbing and snuffling in her car seat when he entered the cab. He lifted her, patting her back gently and rocking her until she quieted. 

Rick joined in a minute later, but he didn’t start the engine. He could hear the other car drive past them and knew that they, too, would have to turn around. The bridge was unpassable, and they’d have to circle around for another way towards their destination. It was a normal occurrence and part of the reason why driving anywhere took so much longer these days. Pulling up the bag from between his feet, he set about fixing a bottle for Judith.

“I know you didn’t mean all that shit you just said. I know it’s not because they’re Mexican. You don’t want to let anyone else in, you don’t want to care, and you don’t want to lose any more people. I get it. I feel the same way.” Rick sighed. “But like it or not, we’re safer in a group, Judith is safer in a group, and we can’t afford to turn people down like that.”

Rick waited a moment longer for Daryl to speak before twisting the key in the ignition and turning the truck around. Slowly, his body relaxed, his breathing evened out, his throat unclenched and his shoulders slumped. As the tension slipped away, guilt crept in. Those people could be the difference between life and death for them, and he’d thrown it away in the most irreparable manner he could think of. Worse, he couldn’t explain to Rick why he’d done it. He only knew that something was wrong with him, and Rick refused to see it. 


	5. Invisible

Rick halted, straining to hear Daryl’s nearly silent footfalls as he moved around the house. He picked them up, if only for a squeaky floorboard off to the left and grit his teeth to ignore the urge to check on him. Daryl would be fine. He was only a few rooms away, plenty close enough to call for help if the need arose, not that that was likely. Daryl was competent; even half blind, he was more than capable of defending himself. And Daryl needed to feel independent again. Still, it didn’t stop Rick from worrying as he reached the next room, scanning it with one sweeping glance before moving on. The faster he finished his side of the house, the faster he could rejoin Daryl.

They’d arrived in town that morning and began their search at the local grocery stores, stacking all the picked over goods they could find into their truck. There wasn’t much, but a few extra meals was nothing to complain about. They finished clearing all three stores that looked promising by the time the sun started to set. Selected for its out of the way location, this house would do for a few nights while they searched the town for any signs of their people. 

Rick peered into the next room, a study with no sign of walkers. Checking the closet at the end of the hall for good measure, Rick turned around to find Daryl. 

“Looks clear,” Daryl declared as he approached. “One more.”

Rick let him do the last one on his own, comforted by the fact that he could see the door and half the room beyond, before heading outside to collect Judith from the truck. It was a cozy place but with enough bedrooms that Daryl would probably try to insist on sleeping separately. Doing so made Rick antsy and didn’t appear to be having much impact on Daryl’s quality of sleep. Rick thought about how to address the situation, Judith in one hand, diaper bag in the other as he reentered the living room, but he wasn’t so preoccupied that he missed the walker lumbering towards him the moment he entered. Rick dropped the diaper bag and drew his gun in one smooth motion, shooting the creature in the head.

“Ya good?” Daryl asked a moment later, puffing into the room with gun and blade drawn, spinning around to pinpoint any additional signs of danger. 

“Looks like we missed one,” Rick lamented, grabbing the satchel from the ground and doing an about face. “Come on, we’ll find another house.”

“Can do another sweep. Prolly just the one.” 

“I’d rather not risk it. Something's bound to have heard that shot.” 

They returned to the truck, settling Judith back in her spot as she fussed over being locked up so soon after her release. Rick drove several blocks before he started looking for another place. He settled on a house at the end of the street, figuring one was just as good as the next. 

“Gotta stick together.” Daryl sounded defeated, eyes averted and biting on his thumbnail. “I fucked up.”

Part of Rick wanted to jump on the idea of sticking together, but he knew that Daryl needed this. He needed to know that he was still useful. “No. I’m pretty sure that one was on me. I rushed.”

After a moment, Daryl nodded, like he’d been working out whether Rick was lying to save his pride but clearly concluded that Rick wouldn’t risk their safety over that. “Slow down, then. Don’t wanna do this a third time.”

Rick let out a huff of a laugh and slid out of the truck. There was still enough daylight that they could do this again if necessary, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Daryl needed more independence, and Rick wanted to show that he trusted him. 

Padding up the stairs to the second floor right away, Rick left Daryl to clear out the first level. He pushed the lingering concern out of his head and concentrated on doing his job properly this time. They couldn’t afford to make careless mistakes like that. 

This house appeared to be entirely unoccupied, but he still checked closets and bathrooms and even bent over to look under each of the beds before returning to see Daryl’s progress. 

The former archer was in the kitchen taking some cans out of a cupboard in a surprisingly good haul, and Rick smiled as he entered the room, mouth open to make a comment about it being the most food they’d found all day when the words froze on his lips. 

Behind Daryl, in the darkened corner of the kitchen, was a walker. As he reached for his gun, the walker came out of its quiet stasis and charged, bypassing Daryl entirely to attack Rick. 

To his credit, Daryl reacted instantly, despite not noticing the walker’s presence initially. In one smooth motion, he spun on his heel and drew his knife, driving it into the back of the walker’s neck as it ran past. It was angled upward, sliding into the brainstem and removing the threat

“The hell?” Daryl swallowed hard, glancing desperately about the room. “Where’d that come from?”

“It was just standing there in the corner, like it didn’t care you were here.” Rick sucked in a deep breath. “Sure noticed me, though.” 

“Wasn’t movin’. Didn’t even see it,” Daryl said in confused self-recrimination. “Not makin’ noise, neither.”

Rick’s heart was racing, and Daryl’s had to be, too. He wanted to talk about it, but there were more pressing matters. “Let’s do another sweep of this floor, just in case.”

“Read my mind.”

Daryl was silent as they retraced his steps through the house and checked darkened corners for any unseen dangers, but Rick knew exactly what he had to be thinking. Something very strange had just occurred. It was possible that it was a fluke, but it seemed like that walker had no interest in Daryl at all, and Rick had a sneaking suspicion this wasn’t the first time. He was looking at the stray walker in the last house in a new light; perhaps it was Daryl that had missed one, just as he’d missed one in the kitchen because it hadn’t attacked him, and his vision wasn’t worth much without movement. Perhaps the walkers on the bridge had ignored him because they, too, were uninterested in him and not because there was a screaming baby nearby. Perhaps the walkers at the gas station had simply been drawn to the noise of the generator and not intended to attack Daryl at all. Perhaps all the walkers they’d encountered together had come over to take a chomp out of Rick and Judith without even noticing Daryl. 

As it turned out, there was a walker remaining in the house, and Rick readied his machete to take care of it instead of his gun, knowing that if they kept quiet, they could stay the night in relative safety. At the last second, he changed his angle, stabbing upward through the chest instead of into its head and pushing the corpse against a wall to lodge it in place. It snarled and snapped its jaw at him, arms stretched out to claw. A machete wasn’t the proper instrument for this, and eventually, it would pry its way loose, even if it tore open its own chest cavity, but this would suffice for the time being. 

“What’re ya doin’?”

“We need to know if what happened in the kitchen was a one off. I’m gonna leave the room.” 

Daryl was frowning at him, but he didn’t object, and Rick didn’t give into the impulse to instruct him to keep his knife out. Kitchen incident aside, he knew Daryl wasn’t careless and wouldn’t hesitate to defend himself. He backed out of the room, wishing he could stay and watch but knowing it would obscure the results of their little experiment. 

He didn’t go far, nor did he close the door all the way. Instead, he backed up against the other wall of the hallway and held his breath. Rick gripped his gun reflexively when the door opened two minutes later, but it was only Daryl holding out the machete to him, handle first. Behind him, the walker’s body lay unmoving on the floor. 

“So?” Rick prompted when Daryl didn’t immediately speak.

“Wasn’t a fluke.” 

Daryl walked straight past him towards the front door, and Rick could tell that he was distrubed but figured that he’d prefer some space to sort out his own thoughts first. Daryl wasn’t exactly the talk it out type. It wasn’t that he didn’t need comfort, but it would have to be the right words at the right time in order to make any difference.

Rick helped bring in their stuff, setting up camp in the upstairs master bedroom as was customary. The ground floor had an easier exit strategy, but it also left them vulnerable to any prying eyes and with only one window pane between them and active threats. To delay the inevitable conversation a bit further, he started fixing their dinner. 

“Will ya look at that?” Daryl marveled, awe and a touch of pride in his voice. Rick turned his attention to the baby sitting completely unaided in front of Daryl’s crossed legs, her chubby arms lifting the compact mirror that had quickly become her favorite toy. Rick had noticed that Judith had started rolling over recently, but as of yesterday, they were still supporting her back while she sat. Soon, she’d be crawling and less satisfied being carted around in a sling. 

Squatting, Rick ran his hand over her head and through the barely present, extremely fine strands of hair. It was coming in blond, but he thought it would likely darken as she got older to match her mother’s. Judith giggled at the attention. 

He then shifted on his heels and handed off a bowl to Daryl who looked in it like it was nothing but maggots. Rick sighed but didn’t say anything. It felt like he had no idea what was going on in Daryl’s head most of the time, like he’d locked away all of his thoughts after Rick had worked so hard to get him to open up. Still, making a big deal out of the sudden food aversion could only cause more tension in their relationship, and it wasn’t worth it, not when Daryl still choked down whatever was put in front of him. 

Sitting down on the opposite side of Judith, Rick stabbed his own fork into his dish. Maybe Daryl was just sick of the options. It had been a long time since they’d eaten anything fresh and green that wasn’t mold. “I’d kill for a salad. Some sort of vegetable that wasn’t canned or stewed or freeze dried.”

“Saw a gardening store downtown. Doubt it’s looted.”

Rick shrugged. “Not like the station has space for a garden. And I don’t know about you, but I know virtually nothing about gardening. Wish Hershel was here.” 

“Could still stock up, keep a lookout for some place with land and fences or walls. Can’t survive forever on this shit, anyway.”

“That why you’re not eating?”

Daryl clammed up, shoving a large forkful into his mouth and chewing at length while he watched Judith play. Rick wasn’t sure if it was to prove him wrong or avoid the question.

“Don’t shut me out. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

Daryl was clearly playing with his food now, pushing it around his bowl instead of taking another bite after he forcefully swallowed down the other. “Same as you, I guess. Just need somethin’… fresh.”

“Meat?” Daryl turned sharply to look at him. “Figured if you had a hankering for carrots, you’d’ve just said so.” But if it was meat, Daryl would see it as a bad sign, and maybe he’d be right to. That part didn’t warrant speaking aloud. “We’ll be in town a few days, we should set up some traps in the morning. I could do with something fresh, too.” His dreams of a garden might not be realistic, but maybe he could make Daryl a little less miserable with his current situation.

They dropped the topic as they finished eating, happy chirps emitting from the baby between them. Her noises were approaching speech, and Rick thought she might start saying simple words soon. Already she made a “bah bah bah” noise at Daryl pretty consistently, which was either her first attempts at calling him by name or a request for her bottle, something Daryl carried more often than not. She’d also started responding to her name just that week. 

“I think she’s had a brain growth spurt,” Rick commented as he tickled along the bottom of her foot. 

“That’s a thing?”

“Sure. At least, that’s what Lori called them, and she read all the parenting books.” Rick sighed. Thinking about Lori hurt, especially when he thought about the early days when they’d both tried so hard to make things work. She’d have adored Judith. “She really wanted to be a good parent.” 

Daryl didn’t respond, so he turned his attention to coaxing Judith into talking. Most everything he tried was futile; her eyes were pinned to his face and her lips were working, but the noises didn’t resemble “dad” or “Judy” or “blankie.”

“What do you want her to call you?” Rick asked, abruptly realizing that he should have consulted Daryl before claiming the title “dad.” He hadn’t thought much about it, had never concerned himself with what titles two male parents might claim, just that that’s what Carl called him. 

“She done gave me a name already.”

Rick frowned. “You like ‘baba’?”

“What’s not to like? She picked it out herself, an’ I got her first word.”

A smile split Rick’s face uncontrollably. That was adorable. He wasn’t sure how Daryl managed to pull off obstinate, resilient and kitten-soft when it came to Judith all at the same time. “I want you to sleep in here tonight, with me and Judith.”

Daryl snorted, playfulness evaporating. “I know you ain’t stupid, but ya do a pretty good impression.”

“You once told me that I didn’t need to have faith that we’d find my family because you did. You don’t have to trust yourself, just trust me.”

“What don’t ya get ‘bout what just happened down there? Those walkers weren’t interested in me on account of me bein’ half dead already.” Daryl hissed, standing and walking a few paces away, trying to mask a broken despair by the sharp anger he knew how to express. “I’m turning into one of them things, an’ I’ll bite you, too.” 

Rick looped around to his other side, forcing himself into Daryl’s field of vision again. “You’re not getting any worse, you look better every day. Something stopped you from turning, maybe it was the dip in the icy cold water at the right time, or maybe you’re immune and, hell, maybe your sight will come back. So there are side-effects, I’m not going to pretend that’s easy, but you’re alive, that’s all that matters.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” Daryl sounded exhausted, but Rick could also hear the hope buried underneath the surface.

Rick glanced over to check on Judith. She was watching them quietly, eyes wide as she looked back and forth between them. Thinking they might be scaring her, Rick backed off, sitting down on the queen sized mattress and lowering his voice. “Then you’d better not chase away the next group we come across, because as long as it’s just us, we rise and fall together. So yeah, you might as well sleep in here with us.” 

“Rick…” Daryl paused, long enough that Rick thought he might not continue. When he did, it was barely a whisper. “I’m dreamin’ of eatin’ people.”

“Your dreams don’t make you a monster,” Rick responded promptly, knowing that any delay would send the wrong message, but his mind skittered back to the horrible nightmares Jim had suffered after his bite. God, he hoped they weren’t part of the transition process that had somehow halted halfway on Daryl because that meant they were another possibly permanent symptom and not just a manifestation of Daryl’s fears. “I’m asking you to trust me. Stop trying to do this all on your own.”

Daryl huffed, shifting to lean his back against the closed closet door and grinding the toe of his shoe into the wooden planks of the floor. “Can’t even clear a fuckin’ house anymore.”

“You’re thinking about this all wrong. If the walkers don’t notice you, at least some good has come of this. Anyone can clear a house, but only you can walk into a store that’s overrun and start loading up. That’s what you proved in the kitchen.”

The following day, Rick was eating his words, gnawing on them diligently as he rolled them over and over in his mind. He wanted to chew on his nails like Daryl always did when he was nervous, but he had one hand on his machete and the other on his gun and neither was willing to budge. 

They’d returned to the gardening shop that morning after setting out a series of small traps in a copse of trees not far from their temporary shelter only to find that there were a sizeable number of walkers occupying it. For what purpose they’d been drawn there, alive or dead, Rick couldn’t fathom, but Daryl had decided that it was time for him to exercise his newfound ability. Rick could only look on in dismay. Ostensibly, Daryl was making use of an opportunity, but Rick felt like it was also punishment for forcing his hand on the sleeping arrangements. 

That was something he refused to regret. After a solid twelve hours of sleep, the bags under Daryl’s eyes had disappeared, and he was moving with a pep in his step. Of course, he’d woken Rick with his nightmares several times that night, but Rick was still glad for the opportunity to stroke his hair, rub his back and soothe him back to sleep. He doubted Daryl even remembered waking. For his own part, Rick had missed the warmth of a shared bed and the comfort of loved ones nearby. 

Rick stared at the glass front door of the shop to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Daryl had opened that door, walked in, and immediately been swallowed by the mass of walkers writhing around in there. It didn’t help knowing that he and Glenn had pulled off something similar with success back in Atlanta. Nor did it help seeing through the windows that the walkers had barely reacted to Daryl’s presence at all, not when Daryl was currently out of his line of sight. Would he even have the opportunity to call for help like he’d promised should the walkers turn on him? Would he even do it knowing it would bring Rick into a no-win scenario? Rick wanted to puke.

Finally, after enough time had passed that the muscles in Rick’s shoulders were cramping from the tension and he began considering charging inside, Daryl emerged through the front door, a large sack in each hand. 

“Are you alright?” Rick asked, knowing it was unnecessary since Daryl didn’t have a spot of blood on him, but unable to help himself as he darted forward to take one of the bags and load it into the truck. 

“Fine.” Daryl brushed him off, though the experience had to be disconcerting at best. “Figured out why it was so full in there.” He reached into the other bag and produced a stick-like object.

“Is that a pipe bomb?” 

“Someone made good use of the fertilizer in there. There’s a back wall down, guessin’ the herd was drawn in when they blasted an’ just ended up stickin’ ‘round. Not a bad idea to make some of our own.” Daryl had hardly finished his sentence when Rick pulled him into a lingering kiss, hoping to convey how unsettling the wait had been. Daryl rested his hand against Rick’s chest, acknowledging without a word the way his heart was still hammering. “‘M fine.”

“I’d feel better knowing you could defend yourself in there without causing them to swarm. But there’s no safe way to test out what would happen if you attacked one of them.”

Daryl chewed on his lip briefly before shrugging. “Guess ya should feel better then.”

His heart skipped a beat. “You didn’t.”

“It was in the way.” Daryl defended with complete inadequacy, hopping inside the truck like nothing had happened. “None of ‘em so much as blinked.”

“You could have gotten killed!” Rick argued the moment he’d made it into the driver’s seat, barely remembering to keep his voice down. It wouldn’t do to attract the attention of the herd Daryl had just navigated. 

“Well, I didn’t. An’ now ya don’t gotta worry.”

Rick gaped at him for a moment before facing forward and turning on the engine. The worry hadn’t gone away. He’d just found some new things to worry about.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to the lovely folks who read and comment, and to those silent stalkers out there. A special thanks to my beta EpitomyofShyness.


End file.
